1st Grade

Lately, I have been working with the wonderful Tasha Newton and have had the opportunity to help her first graders on this project that she designed. First they painted the puddle and then added various splatter marks to their white papers to create the rain. Next they drew and cut out their umbrellas. With the umbrellas, we added patterns using markers. Lastly, we cut out the boots and jacket (which we added details to) and glued them on top of their rainy scene.

We started off class reading Chicken Little. I don't know who had more fun reading it, me or the students! We then set out to make some chickens. In a previous project, they used gel-blocks to make prints. Jen saved all those prints so that we could cut them up and use them as paper for our chickens (almost like paste-paper). We cut out the body, wings, comb, and tail separately and then glued them together. I didn't get to this part of the project with them because I was subbing, but they would then add legs, eyes, and a beak to their chickens.

We did this with our first graders. We flattened out some model magic and then used paper clips to create designs in the clay. We then pressed a 'sapphire' gem into the middle of it and painted it silver. The students attached them to a wire and created a pattern up the wire using beads. Sadly, I never got to finish this project because my placement ended.

I read a story to my first graders called The Gift Horse. This was a story about a young Lakota boy and his best friend/horse named Storm. The story tells of the Lakota boy and Storm's quest to become a Lakota warrior and how storm saves the boy's life in the process. From there, I taught the students how to draw a horse by breaking it down into simple shapes. Then I talked about tints and shades. The students were given black, white, brown, and blue paint. They could mix tints and shades that could then be applied to their horses. After they had dried, we used slick-sticks to draw symbols onto the horses and glued yarn on to make manes. Lastly, the students got to name their horse!

My first graders traced a hat onto a large sheet of paper and then we talked about different types of lines that they could use to paint onto their sombrero. Lastly, they made a skull and painted traditional designs onto it.